Tag: sporting expressions

The Cricket World Cup is in full swing, so it seems like a good time to turn attention to the language of cricket. With its long history and central place in English sporting culture, it is hardly surprising that cricketing idioms have been widely adopted into colloquial speech. The traditional association of cricket with fair […]

Darts in its current form was developed at the end of the 19th century and by the start of the 20th century it was a popular pub game, its success boosted by a 1908 court ruling that held that darts was a game of skill rather than chance and could therefore be played without breaking […]

In the last OxfordDictionaries.com update, we added new words like binge-watch, side-eye, and amazeballs. At the Connecticut Open, Nick McCarvel asked various tennis stars including Caroline Wozniacki and Genie Bouchard if they knew what these words meant, and we think they did a pretty great job with the answers (which you can see in the […]

Tomorrow sees the opening of the annual US Masters golf tournament – the first of the four major golfing contests of the year, hosted by the Augusta National Club in Augusta, Georgia. Golfing jargon can seem rather arcane to the uninitiated, so here is a short guide to enable you to enjoy this wonderful event. […]

The 2014 Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are celebrating this season of sport in the best way we know how: with words. For the duration of the Games, we are featuring terminology from many of this year’s competed sports. Today’s wordlist primer focuses on: Nordic skiing Nordic skiing is categorized by events in […]

The 2014 Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are celebrating this season of sport in the best way we know how: with words. For the duration of the Games, we are featuring terminology from many of this year’s competed sports. Today’s wordlist primer focuses on: Speed Skating Speed skating at the Olympics is divided […]

Curling, for those who don’t know the sport, is one of those curious things that is equally captivating as it is baffling. Although the sport dates back to Medieval Scotland (the first citation for the word curling in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1638), curling in its current form is a relatively recent phenomenon, […]

The 2014 Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are celebrating this season of sport in the best way we know how: with words. For the duration of the Games, we are featuring terminology from many of this year’s competed sports. Today’s wordlist primer focuses on: Ice Hockey Ice Hockey is the official winter sport […]